Development Credit Authority Loan Data

In June 2012, USAID launched the Agency’s first-ever crowdsourcing initiative to pinpoint the location of USAID Development Credit Authority (DCA) loan data and make the dataset publicly available. Crowdsourcing is a distributed problem-solving process whereby tasks are outsourced to a network of people known as “the crowd.”

The engagement of the Crowd was an innovative way to process data and increase the transparency of the Agency. Visualizing where USAID enhances the capacity of the private sector can signal new areas for potential collaboration with host countries, researchers, development organizations, and the public. A case study explains the organizational, legal, and technical steps behind making these data open.